Russian Ambassador Slams Wartime Rape Sculpture

[Morilore]

These are valid objections but still, the risk of triggering panic attacks should not override the right of art to exist. Given how prevalent description of rapes are in mass media I don't think why this objection should stand.

I'd think that the center of the issue here is that the artist didn't tell anybody beforehand and did not obtain permission. If he put it in an art show or otherwise let people know, it would be one thing.

[krakonfour]

These are valid objections but still, the risk of triggering panic attacks should not override the right of art to exist. Given how prevalent description of rapes are in mass media I don't think why this objection should stand.

I'd think that the center of the issue here is that the artist didn't tell anybody beforehand and did not obtain permission. If he put it in an art show or otherwise let people know, it would be one thing.

Yup. No problem with depicting rape. Just don't force people to watch.

[Thanas]

This is immaterial. Art is meant to shock people. If it were announced beforehand I bet the Russians would have tried to squash it and it would never have existed in the first place.

[Jub]

I'm pretty sure that freedom of expression trumps freedom to not be offended. If you don't like it don't look and walk the other way.

[SMJB]

It shows a soldier -- identifiable as Russian by his helmet

I love this part. "Identifiable" despite the fact half million strong Polish eastern army also used this model of helmet. Albeit I have little doubt it was work of your run of the mill Russophobe that didn't even stopped to consider that

Firstly it's the Russians complaining about this obviously being a Russian soldier, so just who are you accusing of Russophobia? Secondly, way to pull the whateverphobia card at the drop of a hat.

'Atrocities'.

Strike one! As a rule of thumb, no one who puts "atrocities" in quotes is about to say something good. Pro tip: "But my neighbor is killing more people!" has never been considered a justification for murder.

By which you mean less than 1% of what happened east of Odra, acts for which Soviet soldiers could be shot, and something that wasn't official policy unlike what was being done by poor Ubermenshen that found themselves completely by accident near Volga.

Love how you have to qualify that statement with "east of Odra". Gee, I can't imagine why.

As for the rest of your non sequiturs, Thanas already dealt with them, I believe.

The fact that there isn't a memorial to every single victim of the holocaust and every other war crime Nazis committed does not invalidate the concept of memorials, and it sure as shit doesn't invalidate the concept of pointing out that the Nazis weren't the only evildoers the world has ever seen. It's not a goddamn competition.

In my opinion we could all do with a whole bunch more memorials depicting the horrors of war in all their disgusting repugnance. Yes, the Nazis were shockingly barbaric, but the sooner we also show the instances where the victors perpetrated utterly heinous shit the sooner we can hopefully get over the mistaken perception that war is a false dillemma in which once we designate one side as the bad guys the other team can do no wrong. Case in point: the Russian ambassador talking without even a trace of irony about how Soviet servicemen fought for "the freedom and the independence of Poland" which of course has completely nothing to do with the reality we all actually inhabit, that being one in which the Soviet Union invaded Poland in '39 and was also directly responsible for the country's post-war woes.

War isn't a rousing boys book. It's ugly as hell, people die and heinous shit happens in warzones all the time, and hopefully if we accept that this is true we'll be less likely to be spoiling for a fight in the future. It's been sixty-seven years, everybody who's got any sense at all knows the Third Reich was bad, so please stop making excuses for the malignant character of war. War is a failure and breakdown of civilization, it's time we start treating it as such.

I like this thought. Though I would amend it slightly: War is what happens when civilization breaks down. Effect, not cause; it makes a difference. That's one of the things I love about The Hunger Games trilogy: it shows how war is horrible and ugly and dehumanizing...and yet sometimes, utterly necessary.

[Tiriol]

I commented on this news item on facebook, but I might just as well comment here in English:

I can understand the controversy, but I happen to think it was a necessary one. It's so damn easy to forget other suffering and casualties of war besides property damage and deaths of soldiers and civilians. Rape happens to be one such thing that is often ignored, especially since admitting that there was wide-spread raping going on when the Soviets entered Nazi-held territories, including Poland, would be a great blow to the Russian image of the Red Army being a righteous army who will release all prisoners and bring liberty and justice to all and wreak righteous vengeance on the evil Nazis. To face a reminder of what happened to many women when Soviet soldiers entered territories occupied by Germans is to face the grim reality that the Red Army wasn't particularly nice organization, although it fortunately lacked the ruthless taste for genocide that the Nazis had exhibited. So I find it rather repugnant that the Russians are complaining how the statue tarnishes the image of the Soviet soldier - the statue is merely a reminder of what they did, not some form of baseless slander. The fact that someone fought against the Nazis does not remove the atrocities and crimes committed by that group or person. And I don't really think that many Poles thought that they were free after their "liberation" by the Red Army, although I could of course be wrong. So, all in all, I do hope that the artist will not be punished.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm not sure I can agree with what has been said so far.

Firstly, war is not the breakdown of civilization but, sad as it is, a natural follower of civilization. War predates civilization, but civilization industrializes everything - and that includes industrializing war. So modern war is the natural and unavoidable consequence of industrialization. It does not matter if World War I came in a different fashion; World War II came later and though it could've been mitigated by the lack of Nazi ideology, it would anyway happen in one way or another. Imperialism is like this. Trying to cover this up or ignore this aspect is like burying your head in the sand. Eventually a rude awakening will come when another war comes and lots of people die again. The ignorance of the fact that the so-called great civilizations (read: colonial empires) of Europe and America came about through war, plunder and genocide is nothing but the ignorance of reality.

Also, as soon as people in Europe start being a bit more brave and, perhaps, start erecting memorials to summarily executed or tortured "Nazi whores" (women who slept with German soldiers) in France and elsewhere, as soon as there's a sculpture of an American raping German and Japanese women right next to the Russian - heh, I'd have no problem with that. But selecting Russia is an easy target when you need to find an ethnic group to malign, and everyone already hates them as an evil empire. Try putting the sculpture of an American rapist next to an American war memorial, and we'll see which of the nations is the more tolerant one. To make an analogy easily understood by American members of the forum: if American southerners started making memorials depicting pillaging incidents and other war crimes commited by the North, it would not change the fact that the North was right in the big picture.

So as long as you don't actually use a legitimate grievance to create a "National Forgetting", I can't object to people brining up war crimes of Allied nations or Russia in particular. However, if you use this grievance to do so - as, for example, many Japanese media use the atomic bombings of Japan to demonstrate that Japan was a "victim" of the war and not, in fact, one of the most brutal rulers of SEA (which, however, had its own positive consequences in the liberation of many SEA colonies from their former masters).

[krakonfour]

I'm pretty sure that freedom of expression trumps freedom to not be offended. If you don't like it don't look and walk the other way.

Nobody gives a fuck about being offended or not. That's your personal reaction to thing. The point here is that I don't want to be excluded from a public area because I don't want to see an unannounced sculpture of rape.

I don't care if you watch porno all day long. Just don't turn the volume up and force all your neighbors to hear it too. What? You're going to tell them to leave their homes or stop being offended?

[Jub]

I'm pretty sure that freedom of expression trumps freedom to not be offended. If you don't like it don't look and walk the other way.

Nobody gives a fuck about being offended or not. That's your personal reaction to thing. The point here is that I don't want to be excluded from a public area because I don't want to see an unannounced sculpture of rape.

I don't care if you watch porno all day long. Just don't turn the volume up and force all your neighbors to hear it too. What? You're going to tell them to leave their homes or stop being offended?

Yes, in your home it's your right to do what you will. I could have a big screen TV that happens to point at an angle that can be seen from the street and I'm still allowed to watch porn on it as long as I have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Plus, what if people decided to be offended by a picture of a bear because they were nearly mauled by a bear years ago; does that image/statue have to go so the public can use the street? Or an artistic nude statue sitting in the front yard of a private residence; does that need to go so people don't need to see it? What if I'm driving a car on a public street with porn on the passenger screens and the sound up loud enough that people at a crosswalk can hear it?

Where do you draw the line? What do you define as too graphic and why should I care?

EDIT: I realize that the legality of some of the things suggest might vary from place to place, but I want to see where people try to draw the line. I myself don't think there should be a line and that all forms of expression should be allowed so long as they don't fall under hate speech or cause anybody to feel threatened. Beyond that preach and express as you will.

[krakonfour]

Yes, in your home it's your right to do what you will. I could have a big screen TV that happens to point at an angle that can be seen from the street and I'm still allowed to watch porn on it as long as I have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Plus, what if people decided to be offended by a picture of a bear because they were nearly mauled by a bear years ago; does that image/statue have to go so the public can use the street? Or an artistic nude statue sitting in the front yard of a private residence; does that need to go so people don't need to see it? What if I'm driving a car on a public street with porn on the passenger screens and the sound up loud enough that people at a crosswalk can hear it?

Where do you draw the line? What do you define as too graphic and why should I care?

EDIT: I realize that the legality of some of the things suggest might vary from place to place, but I want to see where people try to draw the line. I myself don't think there should be a line and that all forms of expression should be allowed so long as they don't fall under hate speech or cause anybody to feel threatened. Beyond that preach and express as you will.

The line is drawn when your private activities are not private anymore, as in tread upon the public domain.
You can't go having sex in your garden if there isn't a fence.

For the rest, it's just your own opinion.

[Jub]

The line is drawn when your private activities are not private anymore, as in tread upon the public domain.
You can't go having sex in your garden if there isn't a fence.

For the rest, it's just your own opinion.

Yet freedom of expression doesn't limit what I can do or express in public unless such an expression infringes upon somebody else's rights. For example, the piece of art know as "[http=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ]Piss Christ[/url]" is offensive to many and as a person of religion you know just how deeply you would be offended at a truly scathing piece of art aimed squarely at your religion, should that art be hidden or should the artist be free to display it as they please? If it is acceptable for public consumption, why is this art any different? If it isn't can you truly say that you believe in free speech?

[Siege]

[W]ar is not the breakdown of civilization but, sad as it is, a natural follower of civilization.

I'm not certain we disagree. My ideal of civilization - or perhaps, if you'll allow me to rephrase, of civility, is incompatible with war. I like to think that humans have superior ways to resolve their differences than bashing each other's skulls in, and blowing the other guy up because the world just isn't big enough for the both of you is an abject failure of humanity (the virtue, that is). But I'll certainly acknowledge that diplomacy's historical track record is spotty and that civilizations tend to get embroiled in wars. So in that sense I suppose war is the shadow of civilization, the black veil it casts around itself. But it doesn't have to be and it shouldn't be, is my point. We ought to strive to something better, and not just shrug and say 'well what can you do?'

[K. A. Pital]

[W]ar is not the breakdown of civilization but, sad as it is, a natural follower of civilization.

I'm not certain we disagree. My ideal of civilization - or perhaps, if you'll allow me to rephrase, of civility, is incompatible with war. I like to think that humans have superior ways to resolve their differences than bashing each other's skulls in, and blowing the other guy up because the world just isn't big enough for the both of you is an abject failure of humanity (the virtue, that is). But I'll certainly acknowledge that diplomacy's historical track record is spotty and that civilizations tend to get embroiled in wars. So in that sense I suppose war is the shadow of civilization, the black veil it casts around itself. But it doesn't have to be and it shouldn't be, is my point. We ought to strive to something better, and not just shrug and say 'well what can you do?'

If you frame it as failure of humanism and you define civilization in terms of civility, humanism and humane treatment and conflict resolution, then it is of course true and war is the ultimate failure of that.

But the process of constructing a civilization in the general and universally accepted meaning of this word inevitably entailed war and war's dark passengers: conquest, plunder, rape, genocide, ethnic cleansing. Otherwise you would not be able to progress from the level of a single tribe inhabiting a single village. It is much like saying we can transition to a superior society (which I have thoroughly researched and, in my early days as a communist, enjoyed a lot). We can - but can we do it skipping the violence and opression that was endemic to civilization and government? Can we get to point B from point A? I sincerely wish there was such a way, but history is very keen on proving me wrong.

My suggestion would be to acknowledge that civilization, like science, helps us to become better at certain things. But since we become better at everything, we inevitably also industrialize death, suffering, slaughter and many other dark things. Our ethical constraints limit the destruction that could be caused by this, but they don't do a terribly good job - as evidenced by World War II in particular.

[Patroklos]

The equivocation of so many things as "offensive" as if the word "fuck" and a depiction of rape, or a visible breast and bigoted statements, are at all comparable is one of the more unfortunate aspects of current English dialogue.

I suppose if a rape victim is triggered from stumbling upon that sculpture and goes into a panic attack, well, too bad they shouldn't dare hope to not be "offended" right (says the straight white cis male :L) ??

I have had several family and friends who are veterens or widows break down completely upon the sight of war memorials. Some they consented to seeing, some they had no intention of seeing (I had an ex artillery buddy have melt down due to a Memorial fireworks display he had no idea was going to happen).

The point of memorials is to invoke an emotional response, sometimes positive and sometimes negative but usually a little of both.

[SMJB]

I'm not sure I can agree with what has been said so far.

Firstly, war is not the breakdown of civilization but, sad as it is, a natural follower of civilization. War predates civilization, but civilization industrializes everything - and that includes industrializing war. So modern war is the natural and unavoidable consequence of industrialization. It does not matter if World War I came in a different fashion; World War II came later and though it could've been mitigated by the lack of Nazi ideology, it would anyway happen in one way or another. Imperialism is like this. Trying to cover this up or ignore this aspect is like burying your head in the sand. Eventually a rude awakening will come when another war comes and lots of people die again. The ignorance of the fact that the so-called great civilizations (read: colonial empires) of Europe and America came about through war, plunder and genocide is nothing but the ignorance of reality.

Also, as soon as people in Europe start being a bit more brave and, perhaps, start erecting memorials to summarily executed or tortured "Nazi whores" (women who slept with German soldiers) in France and elsewhere, as soon as there's a sculpture of an American raping German and Japanese women right next to the Russian - heh, I'd have no problem with that. But selecting Russia is an easy target when you need to find an ethnic group to malign, and everyone already hates them as an evil empire. Try putting the sculpture of an American rapist next to an American war memorial, and we'll see which of the nations is the more tolerant one. To make an analogy easily understood by American members of the forum: if American southerners started making memorials depicting pillaging incidents and other war crimes commited by the North, it would not change the fact that the North was right in the big picture.

So as long as you don't actually use a legitimate grievance to create a "National Forgetting", I can't object to people brining up war crimes of Allied nations or Russia in particular. However, if you use this grievance to do so - as, for example, many Japanese media use the atomic bombings of Japan to demonstrate that Japan was a "victim" of the war and not, in fact, one of the most brutal rulers of SEA (which, however, had its own positive consequences in the liberation of many SEA colonies from their former masters).

Well, first, I for one was using "civilization" in the colloquial. War happens, ultimately for two reasons: Either the problem can't be solved by less destructive means, or someone doesn't want to solve it by less destructive means. Neither of which is indicative of a situation that the layman would call civilized.

Secondly, war is a consequence of basic human nature, not any specific human trend.

[K. A. Pital]

There is no such thing as "basic human nature" - war is not genetically preordained. It is a problem of scarce resources and bad, violent decisions. Interspecies competition can be very low in a situation of abundance, but in the situation of extreme scarcity social darwinism and war usually win. Old habits die hard, so we will have to see many upheavals until war and the apish part of human nature are a thing of the past.

Also, sometimes there's no problem to be solved in the first place. War is typically waged to enrich one through the defeat (and corresponding death or suffering) of another, so if you don't mind following a Jainist no-violence code, then war is not going to arise, since you simply do not see a need to start killing people to enrich yourself.

[Connor MacLeod]

Freedom of speech, yes, but freedom to depict rape publicly, without the option to 'not see it'?

You do not have a right to not be offended. The fact that you think you do offends me, and would therefore be against my right not to be offended, if such a right existed.

I believe I have the right not to see a rape scene. It doesn't matter if I'm offended or not, that's a personal matter.

So if you were, purely hypothetically, offended by seeing certain couples walking down the street or people dressed in a certain way (despite them having the 'right' to), you think you have the right to deny them THEIR rights?

Or what if certain people are offended by certain words or speech you use? Do they have a right to demand/forbid you from using them?

That seems to be the point being driven at - you insisting you have a 'right' in certain cases is infringing upon the rights of others, which isn't really a consistent position, because what people find 'offensive' can vary from person to person. And thus simply saying 'I don't like it, get rid of it' is a pretty unfair position.

[krakonfour]

So if you were, purely hypothetically, offended by seeing certain couples walking down the street or people dressed in a certain way (despite them having the 'right' to), you think you have the right to deny them THEIR rights?

Or what if certain people are offended by certain words or speech you use? Do they have a right to demand/forbid you from using them?

That seems to be the point being driven at - you insisting you have a 'right' in certain cases is infringing upon the rights of others, which isn't really a consistent position, because what people find 'offensive' can vary from person to person. And thus simply saying 'I don't like it, get rid of it' is a pretty unfair position.

Imagine that I am not offended at all. Imagine I love watching rape scenes arise by surprise in public places with children and minors walking around. It's my private fetish, and so on...

Do I have the right to force someone else to watch my depictions of rape?

According to you, yes.

Do I have the right to break all decency and sexual offense laws?

According to you, they're ridiculous.
Also, my point was not to get rid of it, but to enclose the piece of art to a place where only people who want to go and see it will do so. Private: Whatever the hell you want. Public: You are allowed to protect yourself.

[SMJB]

There is no such thing as "basic human nature" - war is not genetically preordained. It is a problem of scarce resources and bad, violent decisions. Interspecies competition can be very low in a situation of abundance, but in the situation of extreme scarcity social darwinism and war usually win. Old habits die hard, so we will have to see many upheavals until war and the apish part of human nature are a thing of the past.

Also, sometimes there's no problem to be solved in the first place. War is typically waged to enrich one through the defeat (and corresponding death or suffering) of another, so if you don't mind following a Jainist no-violence code, then war is not going to arise, since you simply do not see a need to start killing people to enrich yourself.

There's a problem in the minds of the conquerors--they want more resources--and a problem in the minds of the conquerees--they're being invaded. The aim and end of war after all is to impose one's will on another--this includes when one's will is simply that the other doesn't impose their will on you.

War is the next best thing to genetically ingrained:

We are in-group altruistic while being out-group xenophobic. Somalia's basically a giant warzone, but no one cares until an American gets kidnapped by pirates. If a member of our group gets into a conflict with a member of another group, guess which side we're likely going to come down on? If things become scarce, we are sure as shit going to look to our own first.

Pretty much universally, we believe our rights are as important as other people's. Note that I didn't say "more important", I said "as important." As long as people believe that, there will be conflicts of interest, and some of these will turn out bloody.

We are vengeance junkies. There is nothing so sweet as the feeling of righteous indignation. People watching Taken weren't hoping for a peaceful resolution--when the bad guys took Liam Neeson's daughter, they basically wrote him a murder/torture blank check. We love punishing wrongdoers.

Related to the xenophobia one above, we are uninclined to think of outsiders as anything but monolithic. Thus, when Stupid Xenophobe from Side A badmouths those dirty B's, Stupid Xenophobe from Side B points to it and says "See? See what those A's are like?" so on and so forth in a vicious cycle.

Put it all together, and you have a species that finds war very, very easy.

[Batman]

agine that I am not offended at all. Imagine I love watching rape scenes arise by surprise in public places with children and minors walking around. It's my private fetish, and so on...
Do I have the right to force someone else to watch my depictions of rape?
According to you, yes.

Um-no? Nobody is forced to watch those depictions, everybody is free to ignore them, just as people routinely ignore a fuckton of other things they'd rather not see in public, like hobos, trash, dog turd, stray animals, dead animals (or people)...
Apparently society has the right to force me to endure a lot of things I'd really rather not be exposed to, like kindergarten classes on some field trip or other on the bus when this being a school holiday I should for once be spared the noise and crowding that is usual for the school crowd on their way home. Curious-unlike that statue, there's no way for me to avoid it (just don't look at it), yet nobody thinks that's being forced upon me despite the fact that it's a lot more intrusive.

Do I have the right to break all decency and sexual offense laws?

If and when a law is broken the 'morality' question becomes moot. You broke the law, you broke the law. Whether or not it was a patently stupid law is irrelevant as to the legality of what you did. No, you do NOT have that right. You DO have the right to declare those laws ridiculous.

According to you, they're ridiculous.
Also, my point was not to get rid of it, but to enclose the piece of art to a place where only people who want to go and see it will do so. Private: Whatever the hell you want. Public: You are allowed to protect yourself.

Apparently I'm not allowed to protect myself from hyperactive kids whom, unlike a statue I can simply ignore, I cannot help but notice.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Annoying kids and depictions of rape: the same thing, apparently

Come on, people, if you're going to argue here on a free-speech standpoint at least make arguments that aren't terrible.

[Batman]

Annoying kids that I cannot possibly ignore vs a statue that I absolutely can. Statue: Simply don't look at it. Kids-um, yeah, they're noisy, and that noise is going to be audible no matter how much I try to ignore them. You're right, they're not the same-the statue is the far easier avoided problem.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Are you being willfully ignorant of the effects a depiction of rape can have on some people or are you just incapable of fathoming other people's feelings and reactions?

[Thanas]

Are you being willfully ignorant of the effects a depiction of rape can have on some people or are you just incapable of fathoming other people's feelings and reactions?

Aren't you of the opinion that rape is an oftentimes ignored problem of western societies? Then what exactly is your problem with something that raises public consciousness of rape? How else are you going to raise awareness? Words can only do so much. It needed the concentration camp images to show the evils of mass murder. Before that every society in Europe was a-ok with murdering savages by the thousands and with excluding undesirables from office.

If you want to raise public consciousness, you don't do it with nice images. You do it with hurtful, provocative images that people talk about.

Also, as soon as people in Europe start being a bit more brave and, perhaps, start erecting memorials to summarily executed or tortured "Nazi whores" (women who slept with German soldiers) in France and elsewhere, as soon as there's a sculpture of an American raping German and Japanese women right next to the Russian - heh, I'd have no problem with that. But selecting Russia is an easy target when you need to find an ethnic group to malign, and everyone already hates them as an evil empire. Try putting the sculpture of an American rapist next to an American war memorial, and we'll see which of the nations is the more tolerant one.

Give it time. Russian war crimes have been pretty well documented and published for over 50 years and yet there is not a single memorial to them. Meanwhile, the first expert works by real historians about the crimes of French and American soldiers have just been published a few years ago. That scene is still fluid.

Heck, the Brits just opened a memorial to Bomber Harris and his army of butchers and felt no shame at all in trumpeting the achievements of their glorious air murderers.

To make an analogy easily understood by American members of the forum: if American southerners started making memorials depicting pillaging incidents and other war crimes commited by the North, it would not change the fact that the North was right in the big picture.

Sure and nobody is claiming otherwise.

So as long as you don't actually use a legitimate grievance to create a "National Forgetting", I can't object to people brining up war crimes of Allied nations or Russia in particular. However, if you use this grievance to do so - as, for example, many Japanese media use the atomic bombings of Japan to demonstrate that Japan was a "victim" of the war and not, in fact, one of the most brutal rulers of SEA (which, however, had its own positive consequences in the liberation of many SEA colonies from their former masters).

True, but the problem so far seems to be the Russians throwing a snit whenever their glorious soldiers are depicted negatively. I mean, just in this thread you got the Russian ambassador blasting propaganda that would make Mao proud.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Aren't you of the opinion that rape is an oftentimes ignored problem of western societies? Then what exactly is your problem with something that raises public consciousness of rape? How else are you going to raise awareness? Words can only do so much. It needed the concentration camp images to show the evils of mass murder. Before that every society in Europe was a-ok with murdering savages by the thousands and with excluding undesirables from office.

If you want to raise public consciousness, you don't do it with nice images. You do it with hurtful, provocative images that people talk about.

Oh, no, you do have me right. The prevalence of rape in wartime, as something that is everywhere and not just something the "bad guys" do is something that sorely needs more attention. I do definitely appreciate the sentiment behind this installation, though I'm still unsure of my feelings on the execution (hence my lack of definitive statements on the piece itself; I don't want to comment if I don't know how I feel )

I just really dislike it when people think that qualms about everything under the umbrella of "offensive" is the same as people who push to punish those who say "fuck" or to cover up statues with bared breasts or things like that. That bogs down any real discussion about the consequences of actions and just lends towards lazy "free speech" statements that end the discussion.